Windows for Workgroups 3.11 Virtually

I needed to install a program on my replacement PC the other day so I had to dig through my installation disks looking for the CD. That’s when I saw the original Packard Bell Multi-Media Master CD for my 1994 Packard Bell Force 53CD PC. The CD contained the full version of MS-DOS 6.00 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 so I just couldn’t resist installing this in a virtual machine. The process turned out to be a very fun and time wasting trip down memory lane.

Since both DOS 6 & WFW3.11 are still under copyright, I can’t provide a VHD file like I’ve done for the Linux distros. So if you want to play around with this 20 year old OS you’ll need to roll your own VM. Here are a bunch of tips for getting a Windows Virtual PC going with WFW. At the very end of this post is a list of downloadable drivers, updates and programs with links.

VM Setup

Give the VM 128MiB of RAM and don’t make the virtual disk bigger than 2GiB (old size limit). In my trials I found a 200MiB drive was large enough to install everything including keeping a full copy of the WFW installation files.

Use a fixed size virtual disk, I saw a number of disk read errors when I tried using a dynamic disk.

DOS & WFW Setup

You can’t run MS-DOS setup from a normal CD or from a hard disk. Since my Master CD had a copy of the files from after installation I just copied that directory to the disk and used a DOS 6 boot disk to partition and format the drive. If you really want or need to install DOS 6.x make three physical bootable CDs with the three installation disk images. Then set the VM to use your real drive, boot off of disk one and when prompted to put the next disk in A: change the CD.

Use the /S option when formatting so that you don’t have to run SYS on the disk after formatting.

Copy all the files from the 8 WFW floppy disks into a single directory e.g. WIN_INST. This makes installation faster and comes in handy later when you are prompted for install disks during driver installations.

Don’t use EMM386 in you DOS CONFIG.SYS file, it seems to cause a lot of GPF’s in Windows.

When I had 15 program groups in Program Manager, groups would randomly disappear from the screen at start up. I merged some groups until I had only 8 total and it solved the problem. I didnt take the time to see what number of groups makes the problem occur.

Drivers

If you have them install the Video for Windows drivers (VFW) before installing the S3 Trio video driver to prevent some General Protection Faults (they are on my CD). The Universal Draw Handler driver that is added by the S3 driver is incomplete or defective and gives an error when you select it in the control panel drivers applet.

Follow the instructions here, here and here to install the video, sound and network drivers. Note: the linked articles are for Win3.11 on my WFW3.11 there is a Creative Labs Sound Blaster v1.5 driver that works.

I needed to install a printer driver to get True Type Fonts working correctly in Windows Write.

Do not install the Win32 extensions. I tried a few times and they install successfully but starting the included Win32 Reversi game always crashed Windows.

Automation

Use SHUTDOWN.COM from here to turn off the virtual machine from inside the VM. I put the program in C:UTILS and created a batch file named OFF.BAT in the root directory containing this command: C:UTILSSHUTDOWN -s 0. Then by simply typing OFF from any directory the virtual machine turns off.

Put CHOICE commands in AUTOEXEC.BAT to let you start Windows at boot and to turn off the VM when Windows exits by simply pressing Y at the prompts.

Fun

Make a custom splash screen, edit the SYSTEMVGALOGO.RLE file with Paint Shop Pro. Then from DOS run the Windows setup program and change a setting. If you don’t really want to change a setting, then change one and then change it back to the original. See this site for more information.

Set the date forward in DOS before starting Windows to see what happens when you exceed the trial period for Paint Shop Pro 3.

It still runs, JASC just hoped you’d feel guilty about exceeding the trial period and buy it. IIRC, version 4 added a real time out at the end of the trial.

Install the missing Win3 files and set the Windows Start sound to TADA.WAV for a proper Win3x experience.